UNDERSTANDING HOW JIHAD LEADS TO
DHIMMITUDE
INTRODUCTION:
This research will examine
Jihad (Holy War) and Dhimmitude (A condition of being enslaved) and how
affected the people of the east.
It’s like the story of the
frog in the pot. If you put a frog in a
pot that contains lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat so the frog is
unaware of the rise in temperature, the frog will eventually die because he is
slowly being cooked.
This same process
/principle applies to western countries in reference to Jihad and Dhimmitude. Islam slowly is spreading in the west
bringing along these processes/principles with them. They will soon take over if we don’t open our
eyes. We will be their dinner like the
frog.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
How does Jihad lead to Dhimmitude and how does it affect the
people involved?
FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:
These follow-up questions
will be answered in the following sections of Jihad and Dhimmitude that
affects people involved.
What is Jihad?
What is Dhimmitude?
What is the positive effect of the people involved? LIFE/SURVIVAL
What is the negative effect of the people involved? DEATH/DESTRUCTION
Can these movements be stopped? NO, IT’S STILL GOING ON TODAY
Will there ever be peace in these movements? NO/NEVER
What is the history of Jihad?
According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr in his book: ISLAM – Religion, History and
Civilization –
(p.34), jihad
actually means “exertion in the path of
God, and in its outward aspect it is meant
to be defensive and not aggressive.”
He is saying that jihad means
to sustain an effort to save
one’s religion or their
homeland from being conquered. Now the
inward jihad has to do with
according to Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, “to battle the
negative tendencies within the soul.” This
feeling will not allow us
to be the best we can be as getting close to God which is meant for us.
The great jihad is, “to battle against your passionate souls (nafs).”
According to John
Bowker in his book: WHAT MUSLIMS BELIEVE –(p.73), jihad means
“striving” in this case to spread Islam”. They don’t have to use the sword. They are to live the
life and share the Qur’an with others. In a way, they are like missionaries but for
Islam. They
just want to change the
world. They just want one state, one
religion and one umma (religious
community).
He also explains that
there are different ways “to strive in
the cause of God” (p.78). You can tell
people what Islam is all
about. You can show them through your
riches, like giving alms to the
orphans or helping out
with your finances by giving money to Afghanistan or others who are
fighting the West. According to John Bowker, “A Muslim is in
a state of jihad all the time, but
the lesser jihad is
the warfare outside. “ (p.79).
John Bowker
gives two examples of when jihad is
necessary. One in Lebanon where people
pick up food from the
streets to feed their children. The
nobility and dignity as human beings
had to be defended (p.80). Another example he gave was in Afghanistan
where a superpower
tried to take over and
replace their government. They had the
right to defend themselves (p.81).
When Allah gave victory to
Muhammad and Abu Bakr, they did not abuse their superior
position. They did not touch the children, women, sick,
etc. and they did not cut down the
palms or other fruit trees
or destroyed their homes (p.82).
John Bowker
believes diplomacy should be used first but if that doesn’t work the Muslim has
the right to perform jihad in their mind because they are
righting a wrong (p.82).
According to Patrick Sookhdeo in his book, GLOBAL JIHAD: The Future in the Face of
Militant
Islam,
he list several forms of jihad and I
will list a few. There was, The Development of the Classical Theory of
Jihad (p.98).
The classical Islam stated
that jihad is the God-given method
to expand Islam’s political
dominion. It was used as an instrument for the
universalization of religion and for the
establishment of an
imperial world state. Once a year
according to the classical manual of the
Hanafi
School of law, the Hedaya which
states that “jihad is to be fought
against infidels even if
they are not the
aggressors, the caliph was required to lead an army in jihad against
unbelievers/infidels.
There was also, according
to Patrick Sookhdeo, the Shafi’s manual, Reliance of the Traveller
which give the caliph
permission for jihad on Jews,
Christians and Zoroastrians if after he
invited them to enter
Islam in faith and practice, they refuse or when invited to enter the social
order of Islam by paying
the non-Muslim poll tax and they refused.
Everybody else just had to
become Muslim or suffer
the consequences.
According to Patrick Sookhdeo there were stages in
the original development of jihad and
that
depended on the strength
of the Muslims (pp. 99-100).
Non-Confrontation: This was a verbal argument. There was no force used because the Islamic
community was weak in Mecca.
Defensive Fighting: when Muhammad went to
Median, fighting was allowed but only against attackers. Muslims were getting stronger.
Initiating Attacks Allowed: Since the
strength of the community was getting even stronger the Muslims were allowed to
take the offensive against polytheists but they could not fight them at the
Mosque (Q 2:191). They could
fight only at certain times and places.
Unconditional Command to Fight all Unbelievers everywhere and at
any time: They were now ordered/commanded to
perform jihad against all
unbelievers at all times and places.
Permission to attack Jews and Christians:
Now a verse was given allowing Muslims to attack Jews and Christians.
According to Patrick Sookhdeo (p.65), in the Qur’an jihad consisted of a struggle to make
Islamic rule triumph over
everything else. A Muslim had to devote
his time, property, health
and life in this battle of
jihad for Islam. If you are a Muslim that strived with all
your might, you
will achieve salvation Q
9:20.
Ibn Khaldum
(1332-1406), The Muqaddima [Patrick
Sookhdeo p.78]
The North
African philosopher-historian Ibn Khaldum defined jihad as:
“A religious
duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and
(the obligation
to) covert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or force”
{Ibn Khaldum,
The Muqaddimah: An Introduction To
History, translated
Franz
Rosenthal, Vol. 1 (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1958)} p:473
(154)
Jihad is to preserve pluralism and variety? [Patrick Shookhdeo: p. 361]
Sheikh ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, dean of the
faculty of shari’a at Qatar
University has a liberal
view or the word jihad which is exactly opposite the
classical Islamic doctrine of jihad
which
deals with the spread of
Islamic power.
His writing in the
London-based Arabic daily, Al-Hayatt
states:
“Jihad, in its real
meaning, is a means of preserving the right of pluralism and
variety and
guaranteeing freedom of choice for all because diversity is considered
a natural and
universal truth…” [‘Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, “Landmarks in Rational
and
Constructive Dialogue with the ‘Other’”, Al-Hayat (London) 31 May 2002.
Extracts in
English translation in MEMRI Special Dispatch Series No. 386, 5 June
2002 (951)]
Muslims expected the end
of the world to take place soon so the jihad
in the earlier days was
fueled by the feeling of
apocalyptical urgency. Remember,
Muhammad was to the Muslims the
last prophet, the “Seal of the prophets” and he was sent
right before The Day of Judgment to
warn humanity, (273)
[Patrick Sookhdeo 128]. [David
Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of
California Press, 2005), pp.22-25]
According to Jacques Ellul in Bat Ye’or’s The Decline of Eastern Christianity
under Islam: From
Jihad to Dhimmitude, a choice had to be made between jihad and dhimmitude. These
two
complementary institutions
affected the people lives. Islam’s
victories were due to the military
quality of its army and
the high statesmanship of its leaders. Jihad was religious obligation that
formed part of the duties
the Muslim believer had to fulfill. Jihad helped Islam to expand. It
was a normal part of their
lives. Whatever laws the people were
living under was replaced by
the shari’a.
Jihad
affected the economic portion of the Muslim society. They are the ones who benefited
not the conquered
peoples. Because of jihad, Islamization absorbed the conquered people’s
culture through massacres,
slavery, etc. The people had to convert
or pay the consequences.
According to Bat Ye’or in her book, The Decline of Eastern Christianity
under Islam: From Jihad
to Dhimmitude, jihad was a
permanent war. Peace wasn’t part of the
equation but there were
truces related to
political situation (muhadana). They were to be no more than ten years and
the imam could denounce them whenever he pleased.
Jihad
can be done peacefully too by proselytism, propaganda and corruption winning
the
hearts of the people (ta’lif al-qulub). Bat
Ye’or states that one of the factors of military
strategy of jihad includes “the purchase of hearts”, and corruption was the crucial factor in
the
decline of the conquered
peoples. This lead to pressure on the
people with a fear of threats of
reprisals if they didn’t
obey.
Bat Ye’or
states that jihad is a precept of
Divine institution. The Malikis [one of the four schools
of Muslim jurisprudence] believed it was preferable not to begin hostilities with the
enemy
before having invited the
peoples to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy
attacks first. They could either convert or pay toll tax or
war will be declared upon them. Jihad
was necessary to maintain
the conquered according to the conquerors.
What is the history of DHIMMITUDE?
Dhimmitude
goes hand in hand with jihad and
that is the way it is understood. You
can’t have
one without the other in
the Muslim world. It originates from
that ideology. The infidels who
submitted without fighting
to the Islamic armies, were safe and granted a pledge of security.
These infidels are now
protected from the laws of jihad
which would cause them their death,
slavery, ransom or
deportation by their enemies. The only
way for them to achieve this peace
and security is to submit
to the Islamic way. They now had the
protection status through the
Islamization of conquered
lands.
Dhimmitude had certain rules that had to be followed.
The vanquished non-Muslims
peoples were now protected. They had
security for not only their
life but also their
possessions. They also had religious
rights to a certain extent. Two
conditions
provided these
rights: the payment of a poll tax known
as jizya and the submissions to the
provision of Islamic law.
Their economic, religious,
and social fields were governed by the shari’a
law and if they went
against these rules their
protection was threatened and death or slavery could be imposed on
them. The Dhimmis
suffered many legal disabilities which forced them to felling humiliated,
segregated, and
discriminated against by their conqueror.
These rules came about in the eight
to ninth centuries by the
founders of the four schools of Islamic law.
This was the guide line
that set the pattern of
the Muslim’s community’s social behavior toward dhimmis.
Being that the Jews and
Christians were known as the People of
the Book, they shared the
same legal status but
other religious groups such as the Zoroastrians
were a despised people
and they were treated much
harsher.
Dhimmitude
was a civilization consisting of customs, legislation, and social
behavior. The
Muslim community enacted
numerous laws and implemented many principles on the dhimmi
people. It was abolished during the 19th -20th
centuries under European pressure and
colonization of Arab
countries. [ http://www.dhimmitude.org
]
The Status of Non-Muslim Minorities Under Islamic Rule
“Dhimmitude: the Islamic
system of governing populations conquered by jihad wars, encompassing all of
the demographic, ethnic, and religious aspects of the political system. The word ‘dhimmitude’ as a historical
concept, was coined by Bat Y’or in 1983 to describe the legal and social
conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word ‘dhimmitude’ comes from dhimmi, and
Arabic word meaning ‘protected.’ Dhimmi
was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim
poplations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination.” [
http://www.dhimmitude.org
]
In reading, The Decline of Eastern Christianity
under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, by Bat
Ye’or
Forward by Jacques Ellul, she touched upon many areas of dhimmitude and she showed
how jihad and dhimmitude are
truly connected. You can’t have one
without the other. Non-
Muslims would have to make
a choice between the two. If they picked
jihad (war) it would
usually meant certain
death. If they picked dhimmitude it would lead to them being
protected
and continue living life,
mind you not the same life as before but at least they would be alive.
As I stated in the jihad section of my research, once they
became dhimmi, the law of their
country no longer exist,
they have to now live under the Islamic law/shari’a. You have two
worlds, the world of Islam
and the world of war. Inside the umma, the only possible existence
for the infidel to be
protected is through dhimmitude.
The umma is the Islamic community and they own the territories of the dar al-Islam which is
governed by Islamic
law. Non-Muslims (harbis) inhabit the dar
al-harb, the lands conquered by
war and Islamic
jurisdiction prevails either by war (harb),
or by the conversion of the
inhabitants. Jihad
was performed so the possession that was considered illegally ursurped by
non-Muslims is restored to
the Muslims. The way they took back this
land was through burning
villages, taking hostages,
pillaging and massacring the people driving them out and allowing the
army possession. Now that land was their land. Once the dar
al-harb became the dar al-Islam
the former inhabitants (harbis) became prisoners of war. The imam
according to the events of
the conflict could condemn
them to massacre, slavery, exile, or he could negotiate with one of
their representatives and
grant them a treaty of protection (dhimma). If they accepted the
latter, they were in the
status of tributaries (dhimmis). The non-Muslim has to pay tribute and
submit to Islam. This dhimma
(protection) prohibited any further
acts of pillage, massacre, and
enslavement inherent in
the razzias. The dhimma
came about as a theological principle to stop
the barbarity of war
because war is truly brutal.
Even though the conquered
people (dar al-harb) lived in a
state of dhimmitude they
flourished.
They mastered techniques
of civilization: state administration,
agriculture, trade, architecture,
and various crafts,
etc. Eventually the legal institution
would bring together a group of laws
that would slowly take
away the rights of the dhimmis and
confine them to a cramp condition.
This was done by
transferring to the umma all the key
positions that the dhimmis had
formerly
held.
“The legal status of the dhimmis appears at two levels: one, mobile and enmeshed in history; the
other, fixed in legal dogma.”
The dhimmi had to pay a poll tax where in some areas they had to pay
individually at a
humiliating public
ceremony. As they were paying their poll
tax they were struck either on the
head or on the nape of the
neck. It was a symbol of the
non-Muslims’ humiliation. In other
areas if tribute was not
given, the women and children were reduced to slavery.
The dhimmi was excluded from public office. The Qur’an
had verses to verify this (3:27, 114-
115; 5:56). The hadith
forbade either a Christian or a Jew from exerting authority over a
Muslim.
Dhimmi
were not equal in the eyes of Islamic law.
“All litigation between a Muslim
and a dhimmi was under the jurisdiction of Islamic legislation which did not
recognize the validity of the oath of a dhimmi against that of a Muslim.”
If you were close to the
caliph, “peoples of the dhimma” (Jews
and Chkristians) were able to
recover their
property-places of worship, houses, domains, etc. You also had churches and
synagogues not being
respected, burned or demolished all because they felt that the infidels
were found guilty of
overstepping their rights.
When the dhimmi had religious ceremonies and
burials they had to do it in secret.
They made
it so that the Muslims
graves be distinguished from the dhimmis,
so when they wanted to
destroy graves they would
know which ones to destroy. This
practice is still going on. The
dhimmi
condition itself was a religious constraint.
Forced conversions are
forbidden according to the Qur’an
but these wars (jihad) and the
requirements of Islamic
domination over the conquered lands and populations forced the
people to live a life under
dhimmituide or die.
Conversion was also forced
upon the Jewish and Christian dhimmi when
their children were
abducted. Sometimes these children were ransomed,
supplied to harems and made as a
contribution to the
tribute. In an institutional way they
were placed in the devishirme
system.
These children were
abused, some recruiters took more than one child so they could sell them
back to their parents and
if they couldn’t afford to pay they remained slaves. They removed
them from their families
hardened by painful experiences. They
were turned into fanatics by
the education they
received. They turned out to be the
cruelest weapons against their own
people and the soldiers
that were trusted most because they had nothing to gain and
everything to lose. All was lost for them.
The dhimmi were humiliated a lot.
They could not have Muslim servants nor possess arms.
They were not to be
consulted as physicians or pharmacists even though some still went to
them. Marriage and sexual relations between dhimmis and Muslim women was not
allowed
punishable by death but a
Muslim could marry a dhimmi woman. A dhimmi
could not ride
upon a noble animal, such
as a camel or a horse. If he was outside
town he could ride a
donkey. A dhimmi
if riding a donkey passed a distinguished Muslim, had to dismount, “for a
Christian must only appear before a Muslim in a humiliating
position.” If this step was not
taken the Muslim was
authorized to throw the Christian to the ground. In some places the
dhimmis had
to walk with lowered eyes when passing to the left-the impure side-of Muslims.
And they were encouraged
to push the dhimmi aside. In the presence of a Muslim the dhimmi
had to remain standing in
a humble and respectful attitude and when given permission to
speak, spoke in a low
voice.
By law the dhimmi were told what to wear and how
to cut their hair. They couldn’t go to
public
baths and they had to wear
small bells to signal their identity in the absence of the proper
clothing to identify them.
Dhimmi
would flee one area of persecution to succeed in surviving in another area
where the
authority of the ruler was
kinder. Geography was important to how
you where treated as
dhimmi,
mountains offered refuge, but plains, opened to nomadic attacked gave no
protection
at all because the enemy
came and went as they pleased and no one could stop them.
The Islamization of the
conquered land was in two stages:
military conflict which was through
jihad
and the dhimma which was a type of
contract of protection for the non-Muslims.
The job
of the dhimmis was to accommodate the armies
of the Muslims and provide for their needs.
This act eventually ruined
the villagers because they could not supply for themselves.
According to John Bowker in his book What Muslims believe (p.
85), “Islam is the only religion
that introduced this idea of the dhimmis [non-Muslims in Muslim countries under
Muslim protection] and of the ahl al-kitab [“Peop0le of the Book” – any
community that has received the revelation from God as Scripture], so that we
are required to treat them with respect.”
In closing jihad and dhimmitude definitely affected the
people in the east especially
theologically, taken their
religion and places of worship away from them forcing them to covert
or die and
psychologically, taking their dignity away from them through humiliation,
slavery,
hunger, culture, etc. the
list goes on. What is positive about dhimmitude? Life. What
is
negative about dhimmitude? Death. Can this movement be stopped? It was
abolished during
the 19th -20th centuries under European pressure
and colonization of Arab countries. Will
there
ever be peace in these movements? No because jihad is forever so some form of dhimmitude
still exist somewhere in
this world.
REFERENCES
What Muslims Believe, By: John Bowker, Published 1995, Copyright under
Berne Convention
GLOBAL JIHAD: The Future
in the Face of Militant Islam, By: Patrick Sookhdeo Foreward by
Professor Richard Holmes, Published by Isaac Publishing,
Copyright 2007 Patrick Sookhdeo
The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to
Dhimmitude, By:
Bat Ye’or
Foreword by Jacques Ellul, Published Associated University
Presses, Copyright 1996 by Bat
Ye’or
ISLAM, Religion, History and Civilization,
By: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Published in
Our Religions,
edited by Arvind Sharma and published by Harper One, Copyright
2003 by Seeyed Hossein
Nasr.
Al-Yahud: Eternal Islamic
Enmity & the Jews, By:
Elias Al-Maqdisi & Sam Solomon, Puclished
by: ANM, Copyright 2010 Sam Solomon
No comments:
Post a Comment